One day Suppé happened to hear her sing, and struck by the beauty of her voice, called the attention of Kapellmeister Zaitz, also a visitor at Gratz. Soon after this "Maly"[{170}] became a member of the chorus at the Landes theatre, and by Suppé's advice Treumann engaged her for Vienna. She had meanwhile developed her voice.
Materna's first salary was forty gulden a month, but her first appearance was so successful that this was raised to one hundred gulden. For two years she sang in Offenbachian rôles, and it was at the termination of her second season that she became engaged at the Karl Theatre in Vienna, at a yearly salary of five thousand gulden, with an extra honorarium of five gulden for each performance.
While appearing nightly in the light works of the French and German composers of the time, Fraulein Materna studied diligently during the day at the more exacting rôles of heavy opera with Professor Proch, and in 1868 sang, in the presence of Hoffkapellmeister Esser, Donna Elvira's grand air from "Don Giovanni."[{171}]
Esser was delighted with her, and insisted that Hofrath Dingelstedt should give the young singer a hearing, and the result was that she was engaged for the Imperial Opera House.
Shortly after her engagement at the theatre in Gratz she married an actor named Friedrich, who was engaged with her when she went to the Karl Theatre, Vienna.
In 1869 she made her début at the Imperial Opera House in the rôle of Selika, in the "Africaine," in which part she was able to demonstrate her capabilities, for she won a signal success, and was at once placed in a high position among opera singers of the German school.
Still higher honors were in store for her. In 1876, twenty-eight years after its first conception, "Der Ring des Nibelungen" of Wagner was performed entire at Bayreuth, on which occasion the part of Brunhilde was entrusted to Frau Materna. The really[{172}] magnificent impersonation which she gave earned for her a world-wide reputation. It was a part for which she was exceptionally well qualified, and in which she never had an equal. It is stated that Wagner, hearing Materna sing at Vienna while she was at the Imperial Opera House, and while the production of the Nibelungen Trilogy was uppermost in his mind, exclaimed: "Now I have found my Brunhilde. I take her with thanks. I am glad to have found her in Vienna."
During the Wagner festival, which was held in London in 1877, Materna confirmed the high reputation which she had gained in Germany, and when "Parsifal" was produced in 1882 at Bayreuth, Materna created the part of Kundry.
In 1882 she visited the United States, singing in New York, Cincinnati, and Chicago, and again in 1884 she crossed the Atlantic and sang in the Wagner festival of[{173}] that year with Scaria and Winkelmann, all of whom made good impressions and helped to pave the way for the production of the operas entire.
Frau Materna retired from the stage in 1897, on which occasion she sang in a concert given in the hall of the Musical Union in Vienna. A remarkable gathering of musicians and celebrities was there. Materna's first number was the entrance aria of Elizabeth from "Tannhäuser," which was given with such dramatic force that one could not fail to ask, "Is this the singer who is about to retire?" Her great triumph came, however, in the last number, which was "Isolden's Liebestod," and as her wonderful voice, full of passion and dramatic power, rang through the hall, the enthusiasm of the audience knew no bounds. After being recalled many times Frau Materna was obliged to make a speech of thanks, in which she touchingly referred to the many years which[{174}] she had passed at Vienna, and to the fact that Wagner had found her there and entrusted her with the creation of his greatest parts.